Rule 50.Judgment as a matter of law in actions tried by jury; alternative motion for new trial; conditional rulings

Rule 50(a) sets the standard: once a party has been fully heard on an issue at a jury trial, and there's no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on it, the Court can decide the issue against that party and grant judgment as a matter of law on a claim or defense that can't be maintained or defeated, under the controlling law, without a favorable finding on that issue. A motion for judgment as a matter of law can be made any time before the case goes to the jury, and it has to specify the judgment sought along with the law and facts supporting it. Delaware's Rule 50 uses this term — judgment as a matter of law — throughout; it doesn't use the terms "directed verdict" or "judgment notwithstanding the verdict."

Rule 50(b) covers what happens when a motion made at the close of all the evidence is denied, or not otherwise granted: the Court is deemed to have submitted the case to the jury subject to later resolving the legal questions the motion raised. The moving party can renew that motion by serving and filing it no later than 10 days after entry of judgment, and can join it with a motion for a new trial under Rule 59, or request a new trial in the alternative. If the jury returned a verdict, the Court, in ruling on the renewed motion, can let the judgment stand, or reopen it and either order a new trial or direct entry of judgment as a matter of law. If no verdict came back at all, the Court can direct entry of judgment as a matter of law or order a new trial.

Rule 50(c) governs what happens when the Court grants the renewed motion: it also has to rule on any accompanying new-trial motion, deciding whether that motion should be granted if the judgment is later vacated or reversed, and stating its grounds either way. That conditional ruling doesn't affect the finality of the judgment already entered. If the new trial was conditionally granted and the judgment gets reversed on appeal, the new trial goes forward unless the appellate court orders otherwise; if the new trial was conditionally denied, the appellee can raise that denial as error on appeal, with subsequent proceedings following whatever the appellate court orders if the judgment is reversed. The party against whom judgment as a matter of law was entered can serve a new-trial motion under Rule 59 no later than 10 days after entry of judgment.

Rule 50(d) protects the party who prevailed on a motion for judgment as a matter of law that the Court denied: as appellee, that party can argue entitlement to a new trial if the appellate court concludes the trial court erred in denying the motion. If the appellate court reverses the judgment, nothing in the rule stops it from finding the appellee entitled to a new trial, or from directing the trial court to decide that question itself.